When I saw this picture I told S she should give up the jewelry business and get an agent. Gorgeous couple. More importantly, though, is the fact that these two people are wonderful, loving, hard-working, beautiful on the inside, G-d loving people.

S, her husband and their four darling little blue-eyed blond stair-step children used to live right down the street from us.

But a year and a half ago they moved.

And I miss them terribly.

So the other morning as I lie awake at 6:00 a.m. I wrote a poem for these dear people. Generally speaking, poetry writing is not my gig (you’ll see why in a bit) but I couldn’t sleep and I was thinking about how much I miss living down the street from them . . . about how much I miss being able to meet S halfway down the block to hand off groceries, kids or whatever the other one of us was in need of and borrowing . . . about how much I miss their kids sitting at my kitchen counter eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my kids . . . and about how much laundry is generated at S’s house.

S gave birth every two years (or sooner) for six years. One of the side effects of living in a house with six people, four of whom are under five feet tall, is having insane amounts of laundry and no kids old enough to really be responsible for it. (If I recall correctly the giant jacuzzi bathtub in the house in which they lived when they were here was perpetually full of laundry – sometimes clean, sometimes not.)

S – I love you. I miss you . . . and if we ever live close to each other again I’ll come over and help fold laundry.